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Because it means instead of making an intelligent, reasoned, selection you are relying on your assumptions and not facts to chose for you.
You still aren't addressing my question. Let me try it this way.
I need to hire a widget mechanic, and I need this person to have 5 years of experience, or an equivalent.
I have three applicants.
Applicant A has 7 years of widget mechanic experience.
Applicant B designed widgets for 4 years, and has 4 years of widget mechanic experience.
Applicant C has 15 years of gizmo mechanic experience (gizmos are pretty similar to widgets, but not exactly), 2 years of widget mechanic trade school, and 2 years of widget mechanic experience.
Which applicant do I hire? All are qualified. Only one meets the strict criteria, but the other two have other benefits that would compensate.
My argument is that I should use my estimate of soft skills to make this decision. How would you make the choice?
You still aren't addressing my question. Let me try it this way.
I need to hire a widget mechanic, and I need this person to have 5 years of experience, or an equivalent.
I have three applicants.
Applicant A has 7 years of widget mechanic experience.
Applicant B designed widgets for 4 years, and has 4 years of widget mechanic experience.
Applicant C has 15 years of gizmo mechanic experience (gizmos are pretty similar to widgets, but not exactly), 2 years of widget mechanic trade school, and 2 years of widget mechanic experience.
Which applicant do I hire? All are qualified. Only one meets the strict criteria, but the other two have other benefits that would compensate.
My argument is that I should use my estimate of soft skills to make this decision. How would you make the choice?
"A" is a strict fit, "B" is passable as long as you lessen your requirement of 5 years and evaluate actual experience and "C" is a trick answer because the word gizmo is a synonym for widget and vice versa.
Whether or not someone is a smooth talker or would be a good fit is irrelevant to this decision.
"A" is a strict fit, "B" is passable as long as you lessen your requirement of 5 years and evaluate actual experience and "C" is a trick answer because the word gizmo is a synonym for widget and vice versa.
Whether or not someone is a smooth talker or would be a good fit is irrelevant to this decision.
I wasn't trying to be tricky with C. I was trying to illustrate related, transferable experience.
I said 5 years of experience or equivalent. So I would not be lessening my criteria if I accepted the alternate experience of candidate B and C as roughly equivalent.
Bottom line, you avoided my question again. All three candidates are qualified, any could do the job, and it is difficult to to cleanly compare. Which would you hire?
You still aren't addressing my question. Let me try it this way.
I need to hire a widget mechanic, and I need this person to have 5 years of experience, or an equivalent.
I have three applicants.
Applicant A has 7 years of widget mechanic experience.
Applicant B designed widgets for 4 years, and has 4 years of widget mechanic experience.
Applicant C has 15 years of gizmo mechanic experience (gizmos are pretty similar to widgets, but not exactly), 2 years of widget mechanic trade school, and 2 years of widget mechanic experience.
Which applicant do I hire? All are qualified. Only one meets the strict criteria, but the other two have other benefits that would compensate.
My argument is that I should use my estimate of soft skills to make this decision. How would you make the choice?
All 3 applicant are qualified to do the job (atleast on paper).
The person that get the final offer is usually the most likable /good fit to the team / possess certain personality/ soft skills (subjective) / hard skills (you are who you said you are + more) / right attitude.
Interview is a two-way street. whether the applicant like the company and/or his future boss can be very subjective as well.
You have understood what jma has been unwilling to acknowledge. Experience is, in and of itself, often not enough to indicate which candidate is clearly best. Personality, work habits, .... fit if you prefer the term, are important elements as well and can be used to differentiate among a group of qualified candidates.
You still aren't addressing my question. Let me try it this way.
I need to hire a widget mechanic, and I need this person to have 5 years of experience, or an equivalent.
I have three applicants.
Applicant A has 7 years of widget mechanic experience.
Applicant B designed widgets for 4 years, and has 4 years of widget mechanic experience.
Applicant C has 15 years of gizmo mechanic experience (gizmos are pretty similar to widgets, but not exactly), 2 years of widget mechanic trade school, and 2 years of widget mechanic experience.
Which applicant do I hire? All are qualified. Only one meets the strict criteria, but the other two have other benefits that would compensate.
My argument is that I should use my estimate of soft skills to make this decision. How would you make the choice?
Any of them would be suitable. I believe the decision would be made on which one seemed to be the best fit. I've noticed a lot of employers who are looking for specific personalities that will mesh well with their current staff.
However, I believe part of the system is flawed there. A person who SEEMS like they will fit might completely clash once they get into the office. I think if an employer feels like a candidate would be a good fit, they should take them to the area they would be in and introduce them to their potential coworkers. This shows the candidate what type of environment they will be working in and allows both sides to get a feel for each other.
Nice suggestion. HMs should solicit opinions from a wide group. As with an interview, a tour plus meet & great won't solve all problems, but it will help to minimize problem hires.
Nice suggestion. HMs should solicit opinions from a wide group. As with an interview, a tour plus meet & great won't solve all problems, but it will help to minimize problem hires.
I remember at one of the companies I worked for accounting was looking to hire someone. Since there was already a group of four women with varied personalities who had to work closely together they wanted to let the candidates sit with someone doing some of the work for half an hour after the interview. One candidate laughed at the woman she sat with and said she was way too slow. What's funny about this (besides the obvious) is that based on the interview, the controller really wanted to hire that particular candidate. Of course after all that she didn't. My point is that if they had just gone off the interview, they would have ended up with someone who is stupid enough to ridicule their potential coworker. So there's definitely something to be said for letting a candidate that you feel positive about to interact with the existing staff.
If you're more competent than your boss, your boss will often perceive that as a threat. If it takes more people to do the same work, that means your boss is the boss of more people, and thus has higher status in the company. People who insist on wasting their time applying for jobs should take those factors into account. Dumb yourself down to a little below the competence level of the hiring manager. Don't expect to do so much work that the hiring manager won't have to hire many people. Having an attitude to be on time and obey your boss is more important than being able to get a lot of work done.
A recruiter for company sat down with students at a college and mentioned why a public university graduate gets jobs over those out of MIT. This was one of them. The candidate will say things like "If hired, I'll make sure you guys do your job because you don't seem to know what you're doing", or "Please make sure I get to speak with an engineer. I don't want to waste my time with a HR person".
Another case was read online... 2 candidates in different cases didn't make it past the final interview. Both dug deeper and utilized their connections to find out what happened. The 1st one was rather straightforward. The interviewers and those sitting in felt the candidate sounded nervous and "over edgy". That lead them to have doubts about hiring him.
2nd one thought she was an excellent candidate, and it turned out she was TOO good. The VP was also in on the interviews, and he thought if she was hired, she would be able to take over his position, so he casted his vote to decline her offer.
On another note, I object to your sociopath comment. You seem to be implying that by using soft skills as one factor in the hiring process, the HM is, in effect, selecting for sociopathic tendencies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jma501
I didnt say they were selecting for sociopathic tendencies. What I said was that sociopaths can easily play others and hr/hm is no different.
Doing and saying whatever hr/hm wants to see and hear to get a job.
the thing with sociopaths is that they appear to have the personality that you desire, in situations (e.g. job interview) where it is their interest to appear that way. Other situations like when they talk to their coworker who has no power firing them they appear in a different way. So you hire them for a personality that they don't actually have, they only pretended to have. Another thing is if you pretend a personality, then it can appear more desirable than any real person's personality. too good to be true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fishbrains
How about the rest off my post that you quoted? Given multiple qualified candidates, why not make your best attempt at selecting for soft skills based upon an interview?
Usually they set the bar in competence so low, that they can actually get multiple qualified candidates. They keep pushing low until they have 5-10 candidates. That's the problem with this comment. With neutral competency bar there might only be one qualified candidate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ackmondual
A recruiter for company sat down with students at a college and mentioned why a public university graduate gets jobs over those out of MIT. This was one of them. The candidate will say things like "If hired, I'll make sure you guys do your job because you don't seem to know what you're doing", or "Please make sure I get to speak with an engineer. I don't want to waste my time with a HR person".
Another case was read online... 2 candidates in different cases didn't make it past the final interview. Both dug deeper and utilized their connections to find out what happened. The 1st one was rather straightforward. The interviewers and those sitting in felt the candidate sounded nervous and "over edgy". That lead them to have doubts about hiring him.
2nd one thought she was an excellent candidate, and it turned out she was TOO good. The VP was also in on the interviews, and he thought if she was hired, she would be able to take over his position, so he casted his vote to decline her offer.
Whats wrong with these 2 cases?
The first one hurts the ego of someone already in, the second one is a territorial threat. Neither case was ended up with the company (shareholders) best interest. More for the first case, I have seen so many people not knowing what they were doing, they should be more humble about it and not pretend that "we all are experts". The candidate does not have to put it that way, but imply that he can correct the work of coworkers in general, if any need arises.
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